San Francisco

San Francisco, so lets talk about bridges. We came in on Bay Bridge with doesn’t get much press because of Golden Gate, but is quite astonishing; over 4 miles in length in two spans connecting Oakland to San Francisco via Treasure island. Driving over is like flying.

We’re staying in a very swish flat on the 21st floor of a large apartment block next to the Ferry Building with a terrace overlooking said Bay Bridge. Excited to be back in the city, I think we may have overdone it a bit yesterday. After the 5 hour drive from Yosemite, we were in need of a little R&R so headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf (where else) where Mags selected a very fine Art Deco establishment on the Waterfront where we had roast crab overlooking Alcatraz across the bay, with the ferries chugging around and day sailors getting sea sick in the feisty wind. It was such a superb meal that we had to wash it down with plenty of Californian Chardonnay. We made our way slowly home via a few bars to check out the scene.

While we were here the football season ended with Man U winning again. C’est la vie – C’mon Barcelona.

Spent Tuesday trekking out to Sausalito, a very pretty suburb across the bay, which caused us to walk over the Golden Gate Bridge – quite an experience with views east across the rest of the bay, and west to the open ocean. Caught the ferry to Alcatraz on Wednesday morning. Well, it has to be done. Very interesting tour including a mandatory audio tour where we queued up in the shower block to receive our headphones with the helpful staff instructing us to press play for play and stop for stop. Not sure that’s entirely necessary, but keeps a few people employed anyway. The cells really are tiny and it must have been a grim existence as an inmate. Of the various escape attempts, only one was possibly successful. Three men dug themselves out and onto the roof, disguising their disappearance by leaving behind hand crafted dummy heads in their bunks. They were never seen again. Did they drown or hightail it to Mexico?

The Ferry Building close by is home to the largest farmers Market in the state, every Saturday. Unfortunately we missed it but there’s a smaller version on Thursdays where I managed to buy some organic veg. Mostly, we’ve been eating out as there’s thousands of places to choose from. Legend has it that there is a restaurant for every 28 Franciscans so the whole city could theoretically sit down for dinner at the same time. Although there’s no such thing as Californian cuisine, there is a theme running through. There’s a tendency to pile on the ingredients. You could easily be offered duck breast, with shaved fennel, pomegranate essence, wilted spinach, roast carrot, and strawberry jus. Makes the dishes a little too complicated for me but it’s a small gripe as the food is fabulous really. We had a very a fine meal in Chaya Brasserie on the Embarcadero. Its sort of Japanese / French so we had Sashimi to start followed by lamb shank – sort of works. The fine Pinot slipped down rather well so Mags asked for a second bottle. “Aw, you English” was the response from the waiter.

Like all major cities, there are plenty of mad, homeless people, and San Francisco has at least its fair share. I don’t think you’re a proper local unless you have a cardboard sign hanging around your neck, muttering loads of nonsense to yourself. Otherwise, walking around is generally safe and hassle free albeit a bit of a struggle up and down the hills. We stumbled into one area that started looking at bit dodgy north on Market Street after all the posh boutiques of the Westfield Centre, there was suddenly a lot of dudes with heavy gold chains, jeans with bottoms scraping the floor counting cash on street corners. We made a tactical retreat.